FuriousFanBoys interviews Ben Goertzel regarding Artificial Intelligence. Ben started the OpenCog project (an open sourced AI non-profit), acts as an adviser to the Singularity University, and currently bounces back between Hong Kong and Maryland building in-game AI.

PS. And is the funding really so poor? After a few cycles of hype-disappointment, it's probably roughly adequate, sound ideas sooner or later get it - but throw much more money at the field "on principle" and you'll probably end up with tons of dubious, wasteful activities (but the people wanting to do them would be happy, maybe that's the whole point)

The problem with research funding is that you never know, by definition, what approach to a specific problem will work. In fact, I would even go as far as saying that there is no good research subject, only good researchers, teams and labs.